Extracting honey can be painful if you’re not prepared, and it stresses the bees as well. Fortunately, Australian father-and-son duo Stuart and Cedar Anderson have come up with a solution: an auto-harvesting beehive that doesn‘t disturb the bees. Aside from the blindingly obvious benefit of no more angry bees, it also means a lot less work for the beekeeper and a lot less stress for the bees, too!

The invention is called the Flow Hive. The most important thing behind it is the system of partially assembled honey combs. Bees finish them with wax and fill them with honey. The cells then split vertically, and all the honey pours out and into your choice of container. The bees, probably more confused than angry, soon unplug and refill the cores.

The invention works with European Honey Bees (not their Australian murderbeast cousins), which is important: these bees are suffering from colony collapse disorder, in which worker bees just up and disappear. Considering the implications to agriculture – and the fact that nobody knows exactly why this is happening – keeping bees stress-free just might help.

Got wisdom to pour?

this is interesting. question I have is what types of bees are amenable to these hives?

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5 years agoAnonymousreplied:

You should check the FAQ on Honey Flow website, it is extremely detailed. I think it states that this is suitable for European honeybees, but not Australian.

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5 years agoHarrywrote:

if the honey is harvested this way into an open jar during the day, wouldn’t it attract the bees to collect them back?

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5 years agoheidireplied:

yes, open honey jars attract bees and other insects. so you would have to close the jar immediately after it was filled.

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5 years agoAugusto de la Sierrawrote:

Beekeeper too,I recognize this way of harvesting has to be one of the best from bees point of vue. But when you pretend it’s something new, you are definitely wrong. Indeed, the flow hive system was invented and patented in 1932 and again in 1942 by a European inventor. A photograph of it made the first page of a newspaper in december 1932. The only significant difference is the use of nowadays components.Most references I am talking about can be found on the web but not in English.
Augusto de la Sierra

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5 years agoBald Babyreplied:

Can you provide more details on the 1932 and 1942 invention. Who invented it? Are there photos?